Where fashion, geekery and a lack of coffee meet

Tag: Zaara

There is a lot happening — and about to happen — in Second Life® right now and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t equal parts terrified and excited!Why terrified?! I hear you say sweetly.
Honestly, I don’t know how I’m going to manage everything time-wise because I may have just bitten off a little more than I can chew. Which is also terribly exciting as I get to see just what I can do! So here’s to the next few weeks of scrambling, swearing and sleep deprivation!

starts biting nails

Anyway, let’s start with what’s happening right now; SL12B.
It’s been an amazing few days — the actual amount is beyond me to figure out right now — and it’s not over yet!
The activities, talks and rockin’ music festival — sponsored by the Lindens! — won’t end until the 28th of June 2015.
That means you still have plenty of time to head over, have me say hello to you at the welcome area and maybe catch one of the Meet the Linden talks at the Dreamitarium!
For the full schedule and details please head to the SL12B website!
It also has SLurls… because SLurls are cool.

Honourable mention: while the events of SL12B will come to an end on the 28th of June, the sims will remain open for viewing until the 4th of July. You will have more than enough time to at least see part of what all the fuss has been about!!

And before I forget — again — when you visit the SL12B sims be sure to click, touch and tickle everything you possibly can as nearly everything is interactive!
You bet I’m going to take a night off and run around clicking and sitting (because happy accident) and giggling and tickling everything I can see. Well, exhibit-wise. I might get in trouble if I start clicking people…

Moving on!

The 1st of July 2015 marks the beginning of the Body Art Hunt! A month-long sim-wide hunt that is focused entirely on all things body art and body enhancement!
I am super-duper-over-the-top excited about this one as I am one of the many bloggers who will be blogging the event! No, I can’t give away the locations of the prizes!

What I give away are some of the amazing stores who will be participating:
{MUA}
.ECHO.
7 Deadly s{K}ins
Dark Passions – Koffin Nails
La Boheme
TAOX TATTOO
White Widow
For the full list — and the SLurls when they’re available — please click here.

There are quite a few stores on that list that I don’t know so I am really — really — excited to have my eyes opened to the wonders of new stores!
I hope to see you at the hunt!!

And last — hey, I told you there was a lot happening and about to happen! — but definitely not least is the Hair Fair!!! This year will be it’s 10th year, which is a huge achievement all on its own. Beginning on the 11th of July 2015 and running until the 26th of July 2015 it is going to be bursting with fantastic hair from even more fantastic designers!

I’m also one of the bloggers for Hair Fair! Squee
Now you can understand why I think I may have just taken on a little too much. Oh well, it’s heaps of fun anyway.

Hair Fair is actually all kinds of awesome. Not just because hair, but because the last day of the fair falls on Bandana Day, which we do actually have in the land of Aus! Although for those of us in Australia, National Bandana Day is an initiative by Canteen to raise awareness of kids with cancer. It’s usually held in late October.

Anyway, in the US Bandana Day was created to support Wigs for Kids!
Of course I had to do some research about Wigs for Kids since, you know, Australian and all.
I really liked reading this:

For over 30 years, Wigs for Kids has been providing Hair Replacement Systems and support for children who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy, radiation therapy, Alopecia, Trichotillomania, burns and other medical issues at no cost to children or their families.

So, Wigs for Kids is just as awesome as Canteen and I’m in a happy place because people doing nice things in the world is so freaking important! Can there be more of that already?!

Why am I going into so much detail about the charity?
Because this is what the lovely team at Hair Fair said:

Every year since 2007 we have celebrated the last day of Hair Fair, with Bandana Day. This is the day we remove our hair to show we care, and wear the Bandanas that Residents have created for us to sell at this event. It is a wonderful tradition, and lets all Second Life Residents have the opportunity to contribute in some way to help Wigs for Kids. If you want to create a Bandana for Hair Fair 2015 you can contact Sasy Scarborough or Whimsy Winx for a Kit.

Read the entire post here. Yes, you really should.
If you’re creative, even just a little bit, and you have a little time to burn you should totally think about making a bandana so I can spend my last L$200 buying them all. Or as many as L$200 will get me!

That just about does it for the epic post packed to the rafters with so much awesome it’s leaking all over the internet! (I bet that gave you a weird mental picture!)
Are you looking forward to the Music Fest at SL12B?!
Or are you hanging out for the offerings at the Body Art Hunt and Hair Fair?!
Let me know in the comments!

Like this:

As you may already be aware — I am slightly envious if you’re not — this week marks the 12th Anniversary of Second Life® being cool.
There are tonnes of celebrations going on over at the SL12B (Second Life® 12th Birthday) sims. If you haven’t done so already head over to their website and see the lineup of entertainment, if the exhibits alone don’t whet your appetite!
And remember, pretty much everything at SL12B is interactive. So touch, sit, click and tickle away while you’re there!

With all this birthday excitement — mine just so happens to be around the corner as well — I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on a recent-ish interaction I had with a most remarkably lovely Linden. By recent-ish I mean within the last month, I think.

One bright sunny day I logged into Second Life® expecting to bound around and be merry. I was changing my hair for the 1,876,339th time that day when I noticed my little linden home. I don’t usually pay an awful lot of attention to it as it’s pretty small and really only the four walls I sit in when I’m trying to write or focus on anything but shopping.
Anyway, I noticed the four walls and the floor and the ceiling and the outdoor area and I cringed. I’d had the same place for something like 4 years.

It needed to change.

So I decide on my 1,876, 340th hair and click the little wall panel — conveniently located on the wall for my occasionally oblivious self — to access my Linden home settings.
Being a highly indecisive cat I thought I would go through all of the pre-fab (not even the right term, but ignorance is bliss) homes to find one I mostly like and then tweak the settings a little to my unique taste.

I click on the first design that I think I’ll like and then go back into my Firestorm viewer. I stomp around my bright cherry wood home while I “ummm” and “ahhh” about certain aspects of the changes.
Eventually — sometimes I do actually get to the point — I decide that I don’t like the way it looks and want to try a different style. Off I skip back to my browser to tweak me some more settings.

Insert tweaking here

And then I go back into Firestorm, just like I did the last time.
Only my house didn’t change. It’s still the bright cherry wood thing that’s starting to make my eyes water.

Back over to my browser. Click the new design and return to Firestorm.
Cherry red wood greets me.
Pick another design in the browser, head back to Firestorm.
Cherry red wood grins at me.
Refresh the browser.
Cherry red wood giggles at me.
Close browser tab, click wall panel in Second Life® again and pick another design.
Cherry red wood glaring at me suggestively.
Browser now has an error message.
Expletives expelled.

Naturally I thought I had done something wrong so I cleared my cache and rebooted the Second of Life. I tickled that wall panel like it was going to squeal — it didn’t, just for the record — then I closed my eyes and hoped for the best as I swiped across to my browser.
I clicked on another house design, I didn’t care anymore as long as it wouldn’t be that blasted red!

Cherry red wood actually had the audacity to groan at me.

More expletives.

Okay, so it’s not me. It’s not the browser (I changed from Safari to Chrome to Opera just in case) and I rebooted Second Life® so I was running out of options.
It was at this point I thought I should submit a support ticked with Linden Lab® since the last time I had to submit a ticket it took weeks to rectify and I wasn’t too keen on living in that decidedly lascivious cheery wood home for that long.

To my surprise, I got a response the next morning asking if I’d tried using the Second Life viewer. I actually refrained from rolling my eyes given it was a fair question and I hadn’t as yet tried that. So off I went and logged in with the standard viewer.

Side note: OMG how do people use that without all the pretty photo tools and the stuff and the cool things and hyperventilates

Anyway, I clicked on my beloved wall panel and off we went to my browser.
I held my breath.
And then the error message came up. Ugh. Pout. Expletives.

A few screen shots later and I’ve replied to the nice person — who wasn’t a Linden but was very friendly and polite even though I’m sure they were annoyed with another person who hadn’t tried the standard viewer first; oops!

The following morning I got another email, this time letting me know that my case had been escalated.
That’s three days with the cheeky cherry wood house. I took a few deep breaths and hid at VIRTUALVillage Media, or a sandbox. I may have even spent the money I was saving just so I had an excuse to not be home.

One more morning rolls on in and I have another email. This time it’s from a Lovely Linden telling me that she’s reset the scripts in my home and asking me if I could please test that it works. She informed me she was able to change the settings, which let me get my hopes up that she’d changed it to something other than that gory cherry wood.

My hopes were dashed.

But I consoled myself in the knowledge that’s not what I was there for. I was on a mission of the highest importance and I needed to fulfil that mission before my sadness could take hold.

I clicked the wall panel, got whisked off to my browser and there I found a page with different house designs to choose from. It had been so long I thought it was just a delusion!
I held my breath to steady my shaking hands and clicked on a style.

I slowly made my way back to Second Life® where I was greeted with stone! And grey! And pale blonde wood!
I cheered with delight!
I sang the song of my people, which just so happened to be the theme song from Firefly; the Ballad of Serenity. It seemed incredibly fitting for some reason. If you don’t know it, hit play and decide for yourself:

I can safely say that my home is back to its beautiful self. I did indeed go back to the original design with my original tweaks. After all that excitement with the cherry wood I just couldn’t handle any more outrageous homes!

Like this:

This may come as no surprise to you but I am totally, wholly and completely invested in the Maitreya Mesh Body Lara. Since I acquired my mesh body I have spent time actively seek out clothing, accessories and appliers for the Maitreya Body. If there aren’t any appliers for Maitreya my secondary option is Omega. You can learn more about the Omega Maitreya applier system here.

I have been known — rightly or wrongly — to entirely avoid stores that only create items for SLink, Belleza, TMP or other mesh bodies. Not because their products aren’t amazing — they’re usually so beautiful it hurts — but because they are amazing and I can’t wear them.
Mesh bodies are different so not all appliers and products are compatible between them, although standard sizing does make most things available for most (not all) mesh bodies. For instance, something made for SLink isn’t compatible with Maitreya. There are some exceptions to the rule so always — always — make sure you read the instructions!

I feel that I should be honest and tell you that I did cave and get two pairs of SLink AvEnhance hands for my Sailor Moon photoshoot.
I’ll be even more honest here; it was very difficult to part with that much money, — since we all know by now that I am not a well financed avatar — but until Maitreya gives us some various hand options I needed to use something. As a side note, I did try to use the Maitreya hands but they looked incredibly silly! Points for trying!?

My personal preference for hands remains with Maitreya as I like how they look on my pixels. I also like that my Maitreya hands appear to have a better size ratio and look better in photos, compared to my SLink hands. Granted, I haven’t done any tinkering or further reading on the SLink AvEnhance hands so it may be something I can fix. But we all know that I probably won’t do any further reading, I just don’t have the time.

It might be worth mentioning that until this post I wasn’t sold on mesh heads. I purchased the Ever mesh head from LeLutka when I first came back to Second Life® and while I loved the clean lines and the general look of it, it just wasn’t me. That particular feeling is not uncommon among those of us who have been around a while and have spent years — quite literally — tweaking, perfecting and otherwise tinkering with our faces, and bodies.

Then I saw the Stella mesh head, also by LeLutka, and I fell in love. So I tried the demo. And I tried the demo for Karin too. That’s when I spent two days trying those two demos out. you bet I walked around Second Life® wearing demo heads! Okay, so that walking around mostly consisted of sitting around in my living room, playing dress up and cleaning up my inventory, again.
Eventually I settled on Stella — with the help of the Eidann — and I made the decision to wear the hell out of this head because, well, I spent all my linden to get it. Luckily, Ever Afterr is forever educating me in the ways of budget friendly (as in mostly free) shopping!

I’m really happy with my choice in Stella. It suits me really well and, while I’m not a fan of others having the exact same face as me, I love that the makeup customisation is nearly endless and that Glam Affair — and other skin shops — are creating beautiful skins with appliers for LeLutka mesh heads. So, the chances of someone looking exactly like me is pretty small! Yay!

Given my almost blind devotion to my Maitreya Mesh Body I have decided that I’m going to keep an eye out for Maitreya inclusive brands and begin making a list that I can use as a resource; my own Little Black Book for Maitreya Mesh Body. Edit: I did actually create this list which you can view here.
I’m sure there are already hundreds of lists out there already but I’m both really fussy and too lazy to go and find them. I will also feature my finds in the Maitreya Body Love category and tag everything Maitreya for easier searching! If you know of some great places that have clothes, shoes and other accessories designed for, or with, Maitreya in mind please let me know in the comments!

Like this:

On the 3rd of May, 2015, the SS Galaxy will return to port after embarking on her final cruise.

I’ll be honest, in my eight years of Second Life™ I’ve never heard of the SS Galaxy nor did I have any idea there was a ship that spans three regions in-world. But now I do know and it’s closing. I feel like I’ve been cheated out of something wonderful. Or, probably more to the point, like the kid no one invites to the party, even though a cruise liner isn’t really my thing. I thought I’d have a look anyway, just in case I was missing out on something big.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived was the sheer immensity of the SS Galaxy.
It is huge. Massive. Gigantic.
I understand why she’s called the Queen of the Sagittarian Sea; nothing could possibly compare to her.
Anyway, I walk along the gangway towards the boarding section of the ship and notice the 7 Seas Fishing game, advertising boards and a few other bits and pieces. While those things tend to put me off — I’m all for advertising I just don’t want it to be the first thing I see, thanks — I decided to continue forth since there’s not a great deal of time left to explore this ship.

Now, I don’t often get to play the tourist so this was a bit of a first for me. I thought I’d take advantage of it and snap a few tourist-like pictures. For full sized pictures of the SS Galaxy in all of her glory and to read why she’s closing please see Inara Pey’s “SS Galaxy: a last cruise into the sunset”.

The SS Galaxy is also a residential estate, event venue and shopping precinct. That’s perhaps not so surprising given she does, you know, span three regions. I managed to find the cinema, an art gallery, the shops — of course — and the deck areas. I followed the jogging path for a little while until I came across the bow of the ship. I couldn’t resist an “I’M THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD!!” moment; done my way of course!

While I enjoyed my hour or so walking around that huge ship I don’t think I’ll be jumping aboard the next — if any — cruise liner. It was interesting to see and I loved that there are still new things for me to find in Second Life™. However, if you’re interested in something like this there are only a few days left to visit the Queen of the Sagittarian Sea so if you want to see what it’s all about here’s the SLurl.